Study On The National High-tech Park's Effect On Firms' Innovation Performance

The science park is regarded as a dense innovation network or an industrial cluster which has gained great attention in the field of regional science since the1980 s.Building a science park has become a policy option for many countries or regions to enhance competitive advantage and achieve innovation-driven economic growth.As a main form of the Science Park,Chinese National High-tech Park plays a major role in creating an environment conducive to innovation activities,gathering high-tech firms and promoting the development of high-tech industries after more than 30 years of development.National High-tech Park has been a main space carrier for the development of Chinese high-tech industry and an important growth pole for regional economic development.It is a consensus that National High-tech Park promotes the development of high-tech industries and regional innovation process.But the research on the impact of high-tech zones on the performance of innovation and development of enterprises are still rare.An unresolved question needs to be answered: If the high-tech park is important,why do quite a few firms choose to just register in the park instead of running their business in the park too? Compare to those firms which registered in the park and also running their business in the park,are there any differences in the performance of innovation between them?The paper firstly combs the relevant theories on the innovation development and dynamic evolution of high-tech park and summary the classic high-tech park cases at home and abroad.It is concluded that at the micro level,the impact of high-tech parks on firm's innovation performance is mainly reflected in the incentives policy for firms' R&D activities,an appropriate environment for the commercial of scientific and innovation achievements,the incubation of entrepreneurial activities and establish an innovation network.At the macro level,it is concluded the impact of high-tech parks on firm's innovation performance is mainly achieved through the synergy innovation effect,knowledge spillover effect and advanced management system of innovationclusters.The four major impact mechanisms of high-tech parks in firms' innovation performance should be factors aggregation,innovation driven,collaborative and environmental support.The paper uses the sample survey data of Shanghai Zhangjiang firms in 2015 and the comprehensive development report data of Zhangjiang High-tech Park in 2015 to for empirical research.We classify the firms registered in the park according to whether they are running business in the park and whether they of high-tech industry.The results show that there is only a “high-tech” and no “park” in the development of Zhangjiang.Whether running business in the park has no obvious impact on the firms' innovation performance.The firms running business in the park even have a poorer performance in new products.Firms' innovation activities are strongly influenced by the park's innovation policy orientation.That is to say the firms' innovation performance depends on the preferential policy,rather than the innovation advantage of the park itself.At the same time,the construction of the park's innovative service system is not mature enough.In the future,the National High-tech Park should pay more attention to the commercial of scientific and innovation achievements,optimize the chain of entrepreneurship,enhance the contribution of research institutions to regional innovation development,deepen the cooperation between the production and research and establish a more scientific evaluation system,guiding the high-tech park development in a healthier way.